


Struggling for the Sun

by Kit_SummerIsle



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: AU, M/M, Violence, the pairing has yet to sink into nsfw territory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 04:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4947322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kit_SummerIsle/pseuds/Kit_SummerIsle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Struggling for something that's never been his, but he knows that it should have been: Megatron remembers the war and his role in it. It's kinda different from the usual, since it is an AU where Starscream is (and has always been) the Lord of Decepticons. Still, the story is not about him, but Megatron. And his audience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Struggling for the Sun

Megatron lifted his cube and swallowed a generous mouthful of the high-grade. He swayed on the bar stool, not quite fully drunk, but close enough so that he had to grab the counter to stay on it. The bar itself blurred for a breem and he had to reset his optics to see it clearly again, the beating music like a sparkpulse in his audials. There was quite a crowd around and he was jostled frequently, even though once the culprit realized just who he was, a quick, little bubble of empty space cleared around his huge frame… and lasted for some breems before the crowd forgot about him again. Most mechs were Autobots around – understandably as the bar was in the middle of Iacon and though the war has ended some vorns ago, the factions still mingled only rarely and then extremely carefully. Good fences made good neighbours, the Autobots said, parroting a human adage – and most Decepticons sort of agreed with the sentiment, if not the particulars and stayed away from New Iacon.

Megatron himself couldn’t do that. Snarling silently to himself, he lifted the cube again and banished a certain winged frame from his thoughts. He came here to forget, not to think of him again. He came here, among their former enemies, among those who still avoided talking to him, because he couldn’t stand being around Starscream for a klik longer. He was rather a nomech, a mere nameless construction worker in Iacon than a derided, disdained, SIC-in-the-name-only toy for Starscream. There he was again, unable to forget the hated designation… Megatron snarled aloud now and threw back the burning drink, willing it to draw a heavy blanket on his processor, to be able to forget… but he couldn’t. No amount of high-grade could achieve it, though he certainly tried. Repeatedly.

“Hey m’ mech, you look rather stormy here. What’s wrong?”

The former Decepticon lifted his heavy helm and with some effort focused on the mech who spoke to him. It took some decaorns after coming here and not a little effort, but he trained himself not to snarl or hit any Autobots who addressed him, instead answer to them more or less civilly. But the frame beside him, on the bar-stool next to him stopped a rote answer. It was not just an average Autobot, it was… they were Autobots he knew personally. Lustrous red and optic-blinding gold, elegant, well-maintained, rich frames he should hate as much as he hated their kind before the war. But not them. Sideswipe, and also curiously his far more elusive twin, lately a famed painter, formerly a famous gladiator, Sunstreaker. A mech Megatron knew quite well from eons ago, way back in the Kaon Arena where neither of them had been rich, though they could both claim being famous, the darlings of the crowd for entirely different reasons.

“Nothing.” Megatron hoped that his curt answer hid his drunkenness as well as the burning anger inside. But he should have known the red Autobot better than that…

“Nothing, my aft. You looked like you wanted to break something right here. Or was it somemech?”

“I was not.” Megatron shifted on the stool and glanced around. He had no weapons lately to power down, but then he rarely needed one – his frame was all the weapon he ever needed and one glance at him told so to any onlookers. The Iacon Enforcers took peacekeeping really seriously and he already had some bad marks on his tab – he had been provoked, true, but it was still violence and he damaged some mech who dared to call him names. He had to keep a low profile or he would be expulsed from the city and that would leave him with very few choices. Cybertron still had next to nothing besides the two cities the respective factions decided to start rebuilding.

“Was somemech giving you hard time then?”

Sideswipe’s tone turned from teasing to serious. Sunstreaker didn’t speak up, just watched them with optics Megatron wasn’t sure what they hid in the cerulean depths, what the golden mech was examining him for. He could just as well measure him up for weak points in a fight as see him for a new slagging painting. Megatron snorted inelegantly at the sudden thought. Yeah, a painting. Of a drunken, old ex-Decepticon in an Autobot bar. Fat chance. Sunstreaker was a famous artist and the new nobility they started to have craved his attention enough.

“Have you turned to a shrink lately? And no, I haven’t had a problem.”

“Okay then. A cube perhaps? For old times’ sake?”

Megatron shrugged. Maybe one more cube would finally knock out his recalcitrant processor that didn’t want to stop remembering. Though what old times Sideswipe meant, he wasn’t sure – they were enemies and that was that. Well, mostly. 

“Server! A round for us!”

The cubes, when they arrived shimmered with the exclusive quality of an ultra-distilled, fine high-grade that he couldn’t afford from his meager salary. Of course the Autobots, both of them were far better off financially than him. Megatron didn’t care, not really. Being rich has never been among his dreams and he had enough to get by; at least the war has achieved that much. Grunting something that could be taken as thanks he clinked the cube to the other’s and lifted it to drink. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask… don’t mind me if it’s a secret, but… why did you come here, to Iacon in the first place?”

Many has asked that question, many who actually dared to question the former SIC of the Decepticon army. Prowl was of course the most insistent, just like Red Alert, as they both considered Megatron a security risk, which he could certainly understand; but Optimus Prime was almost as bad with his sympathetic optics and that gentle tone Megatron immediately hated, because it implied so many things he didn’t want to think about. But he had to answer them all if he wanted to reside in Iacon. He didn’t want to, of course, and demanded that his reasons be kept secret from the population at large, but he told them the facts with as little detail as he could get away with… even though that brought about another round of sad optics from Optimus Prime and he wasn’t sure he could take them so often. The mech could outguilt Primus, Megatron swore. Probably why he was the Prime still. 

“Why do you care, Autobot?”

Sideswipe lifted a shoulder nonchalantly, but the move seemed a tiny bit forced to Megatron. He shifted on the bar-stool and lowered his voice a bit.

“Sunny here had meant to ask, but you can’t be found easily.”

Megatron refrained from looking at Sunstreaker, who growled at the hated nickname only his twin could get away with, but still said nothing aloud. His frame and what could be felt from his field was carefully held neutral and Megatron’s optics snapped back to his more talkative twin. 

“Most mech hold the opinion that you came to spy or stir unrest or something… but he kept insisting that it was something else.”

Megatron knew this opinion – he had to face it many times from accusing Autobots, though with a decreasing frequency as he actually did neither and kept himself far from politics too. The last time it was actually one of his co-workers who defended him in an argument while Megatron stood there so surprised he couldn’t even thank the mech for his intervention before he stomped off the scene. 

“None of your business, Autob… Sideswipe.”

It was impolite to call them Autobots these orns, especially since the twins were among those who took off the faction symbol. As the vorns of peace went by more and more mechs did so, wordlessly declaring themselves Neutrals… Cybertronians, putting the war and enmity behind. But old habits died hard and he had been calling them thus – and worse – for eons. 

“We know it isn’t. That’s why we ask. Why?”

Sideswipe was obnoxious, Megatron decided, fighting down the urge to punch the red mech in the faceplates. Instead he growled and turned away, intending to leave, when…

“Is it because you hate your side more than you do us?”

“Frag you!” 

He was inches from hitting the red mech. Literally inches. Did he come to provoke him for a fight? If so, he was damn successful. Megatron tightened his servos into fists so hard the metal actually creaked and held back his temper… by the smallest of margins.

“Or it was just one mech.” Sunstreaker appeared oblivious to the rising tensions – or ignoring them. Or provoking anyway. “Starscream.”

Megatron snarled aloud, his stretched patience at its end at that hated designation he wanted nothing else but forget. The cube with the last drops of high grade was shoved as his arm jerked and a pink puddle started to spread on the bar. At least it was a good pretense to stare at it.

“What do you know about it?”

“We weren’t blind. Not during the war, not after. We saw… things.”

“You know nothing!” or rather Megatron didn’t want them to know anything. The Decepticons all knew his fate, his bids for leadership, his failures, his humiliation… but he never thought how much the Autobots saw from it. It wasn’t important back then. 

“That’s why we asked. Not to deride you, just…”

“… to understand.” Sunstreaker finished his brother’s sentence and his calm, emotionless and noncommittal tone defused Megatron’s rising ire. The golden mech knew him longer than any other mech, longer than Starscream… and he was a good comrade in the Arena, as much of a friend as Megatron called anymech there and Megatron sat back on the stool heavily and lifted up the empty cube, setting it back as he saw the energon gone. Sideswipe silently waved for refills but Megatron didn’t take note of it. He never had anymech close enough to tell the whole story to, to _trust_ … Sunstreaker moved smoothly as he came closer and sat between his brother and him, the strong, golden frame reminding Megatron to the Arena, where he was such a novelty, such an unlikely spectacle – a mech vainer than most nobles and more appealing than a mech by rights should have, more so than most pleasurebots – and a better fighter than any of his frame size. There was no judgment in those cerulean optics, no pity either… just a silent encouragement, a promise to listen should he chose to tell anything.

“When we left, you were just about to start the rebellion. Trained the gladiators to fight as an army, studied strategy yourself, writing on the nets, gaining a following and getting a name among the populace… and the Senators. We thought you’d be the one… well, leading it.”

Megatron remembered. He was young and idealistic – though starting to get tempered by cynicism too – but still full of energy, ideas and plans, on his way to make them come true. He sighed long and hard and slumped slightly. He might as well tell it – forgetting wasn’t working anyhow. But he still held back and Sunstreaker continued.

“The next we saw, Starscream roused Vos, the war started and you were his SIC.”

The silver mech sighed, too drunk to even feel the familiar anger at the hated designation. 

“He was persuasive…” Megatron grimaced “… and sly and manipulative and… a slagging noble with the whole of Vos behind him.”

Sunstreaker lifted a brow-plate.

“You were better than him.”

“I was.”

“So… then… how?”

“I failed.”

The Autobots listened silently, waiting for him to elaborate more. That was why they came, after all, to hear the whole sorry story and they felt that he was finally ready to tell it. He should feel honored that they came to him for it and not to anymech else. A Seeker would tell an entirely different story of course and the twins did have an affinity for the flight frames – even if it was just tearing off wings – which Megatron fully endorsed as a general idea. Sideswipe after all was still, despite of it among the few who dared to go to Vos and trade there. He could have asked and even got an answer there. But they came to him. He slashed a servo in the air like it was a sword cutting off somemech’s helm and continued.

“Most of the time it was just stupid attempts. He would goad me until I couldn’t take it any more and tried to shoot him. Which he could see coming from a mile off, of course and duck and laugh. And punish me for it.”

Megatron knew he was far too drunk to talk, so he just kinda growled the sentences into his servo, which he leaned his heavy helm into. The crowded bar with its atrocious music disappeared somewhere and he felt alone – he was alone, wasn’t he always? – even the red and gold mechs were quiet as they listened to his mumbled words that started to flow out despite his swearing that they never would. And more than that, it wasn’t just the buzz of high-grade in his processor that caused it, no, it was something more… the company who listened to him, the one he never considered before as an audience but who was now suddenly closer… trusted.


End file.
